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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I've been using KDE for as long as I've been using Linux. and while it's nice, it's also very drab, and looks a lot like my Windows setup. On top of all that, KDE is bloated and resaource hungry, so it's time for a switch.

This however will not be so easy as you think (maybe )

I'm trying to make a desktop worthy of those screenshot gallerys, the ones that show the beautifully tricked-out setups, with lot's of widgets and such.

I've been googling around for ages and have come up with very little, and at my wit's end.

I have come across things like iDesk and ROX, but they don't seem to play very nicely with any of the WMs I've tried them with.

Another problem I'm having is documentation. I see all of these wonderful screens of how I would like my box to look, but no info on how you do it, or where you might go to learn more. And none of the WMs I've tried have very good info on how you do even the most basic things (like adding/removing items from their menus or creating a launcher).

If you have OpenGL 3d hardware acceleration working, then I must recommend the CrystalGL window decorations for KDE. It turns your window borders semi-transparent with lens distortion effects and shading. When moving around a window, the lens effect on the background underneath is incredibly cool!

If you don't have 3d hardware acceleration working, then the non-3d Crystal window decorations are still pretty cool. No lens effect or shading, though. You can get both versions of the Crystal window decorations from http://www.kde-look.org/

Honestly, the CrystalGL window decorations are so cool that I keep returning to KDE just for it.

There are a few really nice icon sets at KDE-look. My favorites are Umicons and Cezanne.

For a good relatively fast OSX zoomy dock type thing, kooldock is good. It's been a while since I've checked out OSX dock clones, though. AFAIK, there still isn't an OpenGL 3d accelerated one out there yet.

I'm not sure if you know about this or not, but you may want to try superkaramba on KDE. It allows you to have little programs on your desktop like calculators, weather monitors, system monitors, etc It's exactly like those widgets that everyone in macland is so excited about even though Linux has had them forever.

In Gnome and *box you can use gdesklets which are the same as superkaramba.

In any WM you can use aterm or eterm (which you should have since you tried enlightenment) and set the background to transparent to get something similar to the desktop you showed in the screenshot. If you search on LQ.org for my screenname you should see one of the threads around march/april where I had it explained to me how to make eterm transparent. I am not home now, so I don't know the command.

What a lot of people have running on a transparent background (a)eterm that makes it look so cool is the commandline program "top" which is kinda what you get in windows with ctrl-alt-del and click on processes. But it gives you a little more info. I find it really useful in case things start running slow, I can see what's running. Another thing that people do is use an IRC chat program that doesn't have a GUI. That's how these people seem to be having conversations right on their desktops.

By the way, once you make eterms have no background or title bar you may wonder how to move them around. Hold down alt and then click on the window to move it around.

Also, you may want to check out themes for Enlightenment or *box at themes.org which leads to a freshmeat site for themes. Most of them are really nice and have pretty cool backgrounds. For kde or Gnome go to kde-look.org and gnome-look.org.

I'm using superkaramba now and, while I like it, it's still KDE-only so....

--
As far as the applets go, I don't really care abpout most of them. I've only really used system monitors.

I guess I should tell you guys about what I'm trying to get out of this in terms of function and not just form.

All I REALLY need is a clock, a quicklanch bar (not even something like a kmenu) and a desktop, but I want the quicklanch to be something special, since that's mostly what I'll be using to start programs. An added bonus would be if I could set up some drawers (think GNOME) but not required.

Again, I know all of this is possible to do, I just don't know HOW to do it, which is really frustrating me.

Fluxbox combined with gKrellM works quite nicely- they are nice sys monitors built-in and has extra plugins such as GKrellMLaunch which is pretty like your quick launch buttons to load apps directly. It lets you mount drives, adjust volumes, etc. depending on what plugins you turn on, so frees up your desktop to look pretty without loads of icons ;-) It'll work with pretty much any WM, not just Fluxbox, though since you mentioned *box, reckon you'd be quite happy with them as it's light, fast, and has some great themes on the sites previously mentioned.

Xfce has plugins for the panel/taskbar that show cpu usage, net, weather, and a few other things.

Gkrellm has plugins that will show just about anything from system load to the phase of the moon.

Personally I like Icewm you can set it up so you can launch apps using the F* keys and using either Ctrl+Alt+ any letter key or the Windows key + a letter. Very nice on a laptop. You can quicklaunch icons to the taskbar also.

For your wallpaper, check /home/username/.fluxbox/init and see if it is declaring a style. Chances are, when your init is read, it applies a certain style, assuming that you have fbsetbg on your machine anyways, though if your wallpaper flashes on, should be the case. Check out the styles folder within .fluxbox and simply change the wallpaper location in one of these styles to that of your background image, then try applying the style by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting Styles, then the style you edited. It should switch to your background wallpaper. If it does, great, edit init with the name of your style. This is simplistic and dirty! There are loads of styles for download that include a proper style file + background including associated font styles, sizes, etc. but it will get it going.

For your quicklaunch, install gkrellm2 and gkrellm-launch. gkrellm2 handles all sorts of system monitors depending on what you turn on, and gkrellm-launch handles your quick launch programs.

so, go to /usr/X11R6/share/fluxbox/styles/Artwiz and there'll be a line along the lines of

Code:

fbsetbg /path/to/wallpaper

change that to where your wallpaper is as I outlined before. You don't specify an image directly through the init file, at least I don't think you can, but you edit the style itself. ~/.fluxbox/styles probably will be empty as you won't have any installed themes yourself...

As for gKrellM fonts, am at work now so can't check, but think if you go right-click and go to configure you can adjust the fonts. Either that or there's a config file within ~/.gkrellm2 that controls fonts - either using system fonts + sizes, or whatever you specify. What resolution you running - I've never had a problem with the font sizes.